Some people who attempted to call Tenancy Services were left confused this week after an "unfortunate human error" meant their call automatically redirected to emergency services.
One person told 1News they first attempted to call Tenancy Services through the 0800 number link on its website on Tuesday morning.
Instead of answering their tenancy query, an automated voice said: "We're experiencing technical difficulties, please try again later" before following up with "you have dialled 111 emergency, your call is being connected".
The person attempted to call through the website link again on Wednesday, and said it was "shocking" to hear that message come through their phone when they had not dialled it.
"You feel like you’ve done something wrong," they said.
In a statement, a Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment spokesperson confirmed a small number of customers were redirected from the Tenancy Services' website 0800 number when using their mobile device.
"The 0800 number was hyperlinked on December 1, and a plus (+) symbol had incorrectly been added to the number. When clicked through a mobile device, only callers using a particular network service provider were connected to 111," they said.
All other callers were either disconnected, or given an error message, MBIE said.
"This was an unfortunate human error, and once MBIE became aware, we quickly resolved the issue and will put steps in place to ensure this does not occur on any other website phone numbers," the spokesperson said.
"Unfortunately, MBIE has no control over what service providers do with "wrong numbers". MBIE is grateful the callers raised this issue, and we were able to resolve it for all customers.
"We sincerely apologise to anyone inconvenienced, and we thank these customers for bringing this to our attention."
Once MBIE became aware of the redirection, it said it "immediately checked and confirmed the Tenancy Services 0800 phone number was connecting as expected when manually dialled".
Through further investigations, MBIE found the source of the error on the Tenancy Services' Contact Us website page, and quickly resolved the issue.
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